312 ALL ABOARD FOR SUNRISE LANDS.

going to his berth held up his lantern, and by its light saw a pale
little face im among the bed-clothes.

“Twas trying, uncle, to say: ‘’T'was midnight on the cata

“Well, that’s good; I didn’t know but what I might have to say
that or something else like it, on the waters themselves, Rick, for that.
last big wave almost swept me into the sea. I happened to put my
hand out, and caught a ring-bolt, and that saved me. You want to
tell me something, Rick? What is it? ‘Put my head lower?’ Now
tell me!”

“T have prayed for you, uncle,’ whispered Rick.

“Dear little suppliant! I guess we will come out all right, for the
rain has been holding up, and our blow can’t last always.”

He left the boys and went out again. When it was light enough to
see anything distinctly, Rick put his head out of the cabin-door. The
sea was rolling up in every direction into hills—“ten thousand of
them,” said Rick; and these only curled over and fell in ten thousand
shattering, foaming cascades. In the midst of this green and white
whirl, this anger and froth and tumult, rocked the Antelope, insignificant
as a straw on the surface of a spring-freshet. Rick drew in his head,
and concluded that he did not care to cultivate the sea for a living.
But storms do not rage: forever. All that day the wind was lessening
its violence. The waves began to lower. Overhead, there were grayish
rents in the black heavens. Finally, there was peace, and white
summer-clouds tufted the sky. When the sea had gone down, and the
vast waters swept away unruffled, then Rick said: “I guess I would like
to be a sailor.”

The wind was again blowing in the direction of Melbourne, and the
Antelope raced along rapidly. As the days went by, her white antlers
were seen in Port Philip Bay, then in Hobson’s Bay, finally halting at
Hobson’s Bay Railway Pier.